The Verge published a video demonstrating how desktop mode and Office 2013 - a desktop application - work on Windows RT, the ARM version of Windows 8. The video showed a desktop mode that clearly didn't work well for touch, and even Office 2013, which has a rudimentary touch mode built-in, didn't work properly either. It looked and felt clunky, often didn't respond properly, and even showed touch lag.

With the release of Windows 8 and Office 13, Linux distributions have got a never-seen-before case scenario of a window opportunity to take over and this will be much more bigger than the Vista fiasco. It remains to be seen whether the geek community will do something about it or cross their arms.

With the release of Windows 8 and Office 13, Linux distributions have got a never-seen-before case scenario of a window opportunity to take over

You're dreaming if you think that will ever happen. There's only one category of Linux that has gotten anywhere with the average consumer and that is called Android. If the "geek community" as you call it want Linux to take over they must do at minimum the following:
1. Consolidate and agree on which distribution should target the end users.
2. Target said end users rather than just themselves and those who want to tweak. That means, among other things:
* Ditching X.org for a working graphics stack (Wayland does look promising)
* Fixing the audio subsystem (ditch ALSA, Pulseaudio, and the rest of that mess and put your resources into OSS 4 which actually works)
* Providing API and ABI compatibility (yes, the Linux lovers say it's unnecessary but it damn well is necessary for commercial software)
* Stop trying to tell every commercial developer that they need to GPL everything or open source their drivers
* Thoroughly test all updates to insure that a simple software update won't result in the login screen of death
* Document all system APIs in a consolidated mannor and publish that for third party developers

We'll start with that list. If the Linux community is willing to stop breaking everything and do the remaining 20% that isn't fun, then just maybe they'll have a chance. As for me, I'm betting my money on none of this happening. Oh well, FreeBSD already has most of this and they could always make a stab at the desktop or a FreeBSD tablet. The *BSD folks know what needs to be done to make an operating system rather than a mishmash of components that come apart at the first opportunity.

Hardly anyone is telling commercial developers to GPL everything. At least, far more people are complaining about that kind of behaviour than there are people actually behaving that way. It's a very trollish point to make.

Simple software updates don't break the login screen. The only time I've seen this happening was in OS X, where an error in a WLAN library made the login splash screen hang indefinitely with no error message. No Linux distro offers that kind of unneeded complexity.

FreeBSD is years behind Linux on the desktop. At least if you include things like ditching X for Wayland, never mind that FreeBSD is years behind Linux with X development as well. But yeah, it does have OSSv4. It's not really all that much better than ALSA + Pulse in all configurations (certainly didn't work for me), but if you prefer the FreeBSD fantasy to the Fantasy of The Year of Linux on the Desktop, then just go right ahead and dream on.

* Ditching X.org for a working graphics stack (Wayland does look promising)
* Fixing the audio subsystem (ditch ALSA, Pulseaudio, and the rest of that mess and put your resources into OSS 4 which actually works)
* Providing API and ABI compatibility (yes, the Linux lovers say it's unnecessary but it damn well is necessary for commercial software)

BS. Ditch X.org for Wayland? I have very few good words to say about X, but ditching a thoroughly tested and working, though somewhat aged and quite clunky, system for some vapourware is plain stupid. Pulseaudio is a bitch, right, but no-one is forcing you to use it. OSS is already ditched for ALSA, so the chances that ALSA be ditched for OSS4 are quite slim. Re: ABI compatibility, it's right there. Install the libraries you need, load the modules you need and stop whining. I have, and occasionally run, programs from every incarnation of libc: a sourceless ZMAGIC roguelike, some Loki games, a commercial tape backup program from the 2.0 kernel days, some really old version of ApplixWare. That's pretty damn good for me. If you want to say something about GCC ABI compatibility, well, I feel your pain. APIs stay mostly compatible within those projects I track, can't say anything about the general trend.

* Stop trying to tell every commercial developer that they need to GPL everything or open source their drivers
* Thoroughly test all updates to insure that a simple software update won't result in the login screen of death
* Document all system APIs in a consolidated mannor and publish that for third party developers

Nagging vendors for open source drivers is actually useful in the long run — most of them eventually got the message, even Broadcom. The last two are good points, but this is not a single team with a single policy.

* Ditching X.org for a working graphics stack (Wayland does look promising)
* Fixing the audio subsystem (ditch ALSA, Pulseaudio, and the rest of that mess and put your resources into OSS 4 which actually works)
* Providing API and ABI compatibility (yes, the Linux lovers say it's unnecessary but it damn well is necessary for commercial software)

Seriously, none of that is a problem. I can install Unreal Tournament 99 for Linux, ported by Loki arround ~2000 and it works fine in this modern 64bit Gnome 3 ArchLinux install.

If your poorly binary _only_ software depends on dynamic linked libraries that will sure change over the years, then sure, it will brake.

I would add to your list: create/support a usable desktop (like Cinnamon or Mate) or go back to something like KDE 3.5.
I will never stress that enough. The direction taken by the Linux Desktop has disgusted so many users.
But they said that users didn't matter, didn't they?

Not a chance dude, they'll just stick with 7 like they stuck with XP. As we have seen posted here lately there are just too many problems in Linux land that keep the software developers from supporting it, and without native ports of the software everyone uses it has ZERO chance.

Joe Average simply isn't gonna deal with the flaming mess that is Wine, hardware roulette when it comes to shopping for devices that will work with his computer, dealing with the incredibly retarded breakages that happen like Pulseaudio crapping or the wireless getting hosed, and the general unfriendliness of the design.

The simple fact is to get linux to get even OSX levels of adoption fundamental changes would have to be made to the way things are done and the devs are elitist ubernerds that think the entire world should do things THEIR way instead of conforming to the way the world works.

As a wise man on one of the forums said "Linux is 3 years away from being ready for the masses. it was 3 years away 10 years ago, it is 3 years away now, and it'll be 3 years away 10 years from now" because the devs simply won't go along with the changes to the way they do things to get more people on board.

With the release of Windows 8 and Office 13, Linux distributions have got a never-seen-before case scenario of a window opportunity to take over and this will be much more bigger than the Vista fiasco. It remains to be seen whether the geek community will do something about it or cross their arms.

Uh huh... just like the huge opportunity that Linux had back when Win2k was released because of the "OMG 60,000 bugs!". Or the huge opportunity that Linux had when XP was released because of "OMG product activation!". Or the huge opportunity that Linux had when Vista was released because of "OMG DRM!".

Uh huh... just like the huge opportunity that Linux had back when Win2k was released because of the "OMG 60,000 bugs!". Or the huge opportunity that Linux had when XP was released because of "OMG product activation!". Or the huge opportunity that Linux had when Vista was released because of "OMG DRM!".

Remind me, how did those "huge opportunities" work again?

They would all help if Microsoft didn't have such a strong arm to push their products trough OEMs.

It's not about who has the best product, but who is powerful enough. Look at Android, the first versions were fairly poor, and yet Google was able to force it trough many manufacturers.

You don't even need to go that far, Linux servers, HPC and supercomputers are mostly backed by powerful companies like Red Hat and IBM.